Dead
Drunk Danes:
And Other Observations from Legoland
by Michael StandaertAuthor's
Links

Act One
- Scene One: A funny in Arhus, Denmark

"You know, it's funny," the unknown American artist Mark McFall
said to me while we sat canalside in Arhus, soaking sun and blinding the
locals with our Hawaiian shirts, "public drunkenness is not looked
down upon that much here. Actually, if it is a day like this, it is kind
of expected. If it was gray and rainy, well, that's a different story."
Dribbling past us, or drooling, drowning,
or whatever were a gaggle of drunken Danes, white as snowblindness, morgue
specimens obscured from the sun by months of earth tilting arrogance by
those Australians walkabouting, who thus change the angle of the earth on
about the same time every year. Ah, but that best of all gods, the mighty
sun was out, and the tendency to sideline reserved Protestant gloom melted
away. One of the Old Danes cracked a bottle over the head of a New Dane,
an elderly Vietnamese man who, strangely enough, was collecting bottles.
Now he had to withdraw emerald pieces of Turborg brand beer glass from his
head, but at least he was allowed to keep what he retained. All for a good
cause though, a case of Danish hospitality for newcomers, foreigners, immigrants,
asylum seekers, or "New Danes" as they like to name them, a mere
five percent of the population, or about an influx of 20,000 a year to this
semi-homogenous land of the long lost Vikings.
"You know, it's funny," McFall said
to me once again, "I once had a strange thing happen to me here. Got
called in for a job interview for painting houses, just some regular work,
and when I came into the guy's office, he breathed a large sigh of relief,
and shaking my hand and letting me know I had the job, said he just wanted
to see me first. He knew I was American, he said, but just didn't know 'what
kind' of American I was. He said he wanted to see if I was black."
Ah, yes, funny. But not to get too down on
the Danes, they aren't all racist thugs yearning for the Reich to return
from southern absence, they are in fact a very tolerantpeople as
long as you assimilate, speak Danish, and eat brown bread and mackerel for
lunch every day. Ah, raise your Tuborg, your Carlsberg, your Ceres to the
New Danes fleeing their wretched South! Raise them to the Somalis, Turks
and Moroccans! To the Bosnians, Indonesians and Chinese! Where else can
you get asylum, have a sex change and enter into a homosexual marriage arrangement
(or all three)? Are these New Danes such a burden on the system of social
welfare, one of the highest tax levels in the world? No, they are not. A
miniscule five percent. You are pointing the herring in the wrong direction.
What is the problem?

Act One - Scene Two: A sudden loss of reason

The unknown American artist Mark McFall with the lovely Danish wife, upon
being denied half-price beer at the Café Arthur where he was displaying
his artwork for the sole purpose of being able to get half-price beer, became
enraged and threatened to remove his artwork from the walls of the hallowed
Arhus pub. The young barman, new to the establishment and never having seen
McFall before, and who didn't know of the agreement McFall had with the
owner, threatened to call that very owner.
"By all means, call the owner,"
said McFall, who was also asked to produce an ID declaring he was in fact,
McFall. This made him even more angry and thus he began his redecoration
of the walls. The barman called the owner and told him what was transpiring
and that very owner said, no, McFall could not have any more half-price
beer, and yes, as far as he was concerned, McFall could take his paintings
and leave.
"Fine, great, fine," said McFall,
and he continued to remove his paintings; one of his black cat Bob looking
out a Dutch window; another a painting of his wife, who was standing next
to me in shocked awe, and her friend drinking coffee; one of a lewd dragon
gawking at a princess; also one of the black cat casting no shadow sitting
next to a couch (which I mistook as a piano, sorry McFall); and even one
which McFall called "A Portrait of Jesus" which in fact was an
old burlap coffee sack, with the word GUATEMALA printed across it, hung
in a frame. We gathered the paintings and took them off to his studio, where
he told me his idea of a new exhibit of sports related art, but the twist
was that you could not enter the gallery unless you were naked. Later, we
drank into the night and I though don't recall much of what happened, I
do know that the conversations were less then spectacular and that the beer
was rather warm.

Act One - Scene Three: God Save the King! (please?)

One thing I have been confronted with here is the fact that my president
seems to think that there are no other countries or peoples in the world
besides the God fearing U.S of Amerika. It is not rampant Anti-Americanism
per se, and I have only been thrown out of three villages, but it is somewhat
irritating when all I can speak is nasally Midwestern American English and
not hide my cornfed roots, so to say. First it was the rejection of Kyoto
(where there is a strange collection of Korean ears buried, sources tell
me, but that is between the Japanese and their former colonies), and the
Agreement, which is an oxymoron, because there never really was an agreement,
was there? Roll in the Missile Defense Shield, rejection of the International
Criminal Court, loss of the seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission and
back payments to that overburdened and lackluster body, and other small
time dealings like Echelon, slight misplacements of not so important documents
in the Tim "I'm Not the Unibomber" McVeigh case and his impending
(at the time of writing) execution, some bumping of toys with China, oil
below the caribou (can't we just turn them into oil too?), unilateral enlightened
self-interested capitalism, Jerry Springer on TV, etc….and it appears to
give this Mississippi mud Illowa boy an arrogant nationality. But then I
voted for Nader. Which was a vote for Bush. Right? Sorry. My bad.
But this is all small change compared with
the cultural wash the Euros receive from our beloved states. On my TV, I
can watch Riki Lake, The Fresh Prince, Will and Grace, and other
wonders of our media establishment every evening. Don't forget Oprah
either. It almost feels like home. I just wish I could get Cubbies games,
then I would never leave.

Act One - Scene Four: Have you tried a nice Danish pastry?

When we last left the unknown American artist Mark McFall, he was passed
out in his own fluids on a couch somewhere in Little Manchester, a community
of exiled Manchurians fleeing from the dreaded Foot and Mouth (or was it
Hoof and Tooth?) after hours of refer madness, spontaneous poetic exclamations,
frazzled guitar renditions of "You are My Sunshine," and bellow
voiced nationalistic Queen saving hymnals sung by rugby washouts and reformed
soccer (football) hooligans.
Now, clean and bright except for the bruise
on his left eye received from a softball thrown by a Dane who was not raised
with the game, McFall was lecturing me on the delicate relations with members
of the Danish female persuasion.
"It's funny," (it always is), "the
girls here are not really big on relationships, but they are big into one
night stands."
Well, what a relief.
So I went out and got myself a one night stand,
and it turned into a relationship, if you call being handcuffed to a bed
in Copenhagen for a week a relationship. But I didn't mind, was well sexed
and fed, received generous supplies of coffee, cigarettes, croissants, and
strawberry jam.
But alas, as you read this I have fled the
country to the warmer climes of Brussels, Paris or London, leaving my Danish
behind. Am I worried she will be unfaithful, hesitant, or wary of her American
beau and search instead for a Viking mate? Well, considering that at least
half the young men here could pass as stand-ins for the Travis Bickel character
from Taxi Driver, I think my chances may be slightly better than
average.
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